According to Wikipedia, Rufus Wainwright's two Want albums were originally going to be released together as a double album. For my part, I'm glad he spread these songs out across two separate releases, because listening to the entire Want saga in one go would be pretty exhausting. I was planning to have a Rufus double feature yesterday evening, but by the time I'd finished listening to Want One I was ready for bed.
Of course, the other upside of having two single albums instead of one double album is that we can judge them against each other! I've stated my preference for Want One in the past, but I've never really fleshed out that statement with an explanation. Well, here are three reasons why Want One is better than Want Two:
It's Valentine's Day, and in the spirit of love and romance and deep, meaningful connections, I've decided that today's blog post will be a list of albums that I'd never have heard if it hadn't been for Sarah, my girlfriend of nearly four years. Well, I might have heard them eventually, but it would have taken a lot longer and they wouldn't have been nearly as meaningful anyway.
Harvest by Neil Young
Some people use OkCupid or Match.com to find their twoo wuv. I used last.fm. Sad and nerdy though it sounds, Sarah's outstanding taste in music was a big part of why I found her so attractive in the first place - her 'Top Artists' bit was packed with great bands that none of my friends liked, including British Sea Power, The Decemberists, Interpol, Brakes...I could go on. Her #1 artist, however, was a man whose music I'd never really listened to: Neil Young.
I'd heard of Neil Young, naturally, but I'd never really bothered to investigate his albums. Then Sarah came along and, eager to interact with this pretty girl and her A+ music knowledge, I asked her which of his CDs I ought to start with. She recommended Harvest, I purchased it for £5 from Rise Music in Bristol, and - sure enough - it turned out to be a good recommendation. I especially liked A Man Needs a Maid, with its big orchestral flourishes, and Words (Between the Lines of Age), with its funny time signature that eventually resolves into a hard-rocking chorus.
Want Two by Rufus Wainwright
One of my favourite things about music is that two people can have completely different experiences of the same artist. For example, Sarah and I both liked Rufus Wainwright, but where I knew him for Poses - Cigarettes & Chocolate Milk, The Consort, and so on - she knew him for Want Two. To Sarah, Rufus Wainwright meant songs like The Art Teacher, Little Sister, and several other songs I'd never heard until we met.
We both still insist that 'our' album is the better one, but even if I do still prefer Poses, I will concede that Want Two is a great, great album. Especially The One You Love, a jagged little stomper that sounds great on the CD and even better when you see it live (as we did in Portugal a couple of years ago).
Comfort Eagle by Cake
This was only last year. We were in Barnado's, I was flicking through the CDs, and I came across a Cake album called Comfort Eagle. The only Cake songs I knew at that point were Italian Leather Sofa and their cover of I Will Survive; since Comfort Eagle contained neither, I was happy to leave it on the rack. But Sarah, who already owned their fifth album Pressure Chief, assured me that this was one purchase worth making.
She was right, as she often is.
Comfort Eagle is a cracking album, packed with catchy tunes and fun characters (the opera singer, the Austrian nobleman, the couple in World of Two). It's a great driving album, as I've mentioned previously, but more importantly, it's a fantastically enjoyable album - an album of trumpets and funky guitars and brilliance.
A Present for Everyone by Busted
I know I mentioned Busted several times in the One Direction blog, but they bear mentioning once more today. I'd obviously heard quite few of these songs back in the day, but some years later, it was Sarah once again who advised me to get the album. Writing about her now, she seems like my personal music advisor as much as my girlfriend.
A Present for Everyone is one of Sarah's favourites from when she was younger, alongside Pink's Missundaztood and the eponymous All Saints album. She insists that it is superior to Busted's self-titled debut, and I think she's probably right - that album does boast such classics as Without You and Psycho Girl, not to mention its clutch of stellar singles, but Present... still edges it out. The likes of She Wants to Be Me, 3AM, Crashed the Wedding and so forth make me wish I still went to school, so that I could listen to those songs on the way home.
Datarock Datarock by Datarock
Y'know that pre-relationship period? When you haven't kissed or been on a date or anything like that yet, but when you're already talking to each other as much as most proper couples? That was a fruitful period for me, music-wise. Sarah and I used to chat on MSN, swapping song recommendations and, by and large, enjoying everything we heard (well, I enjoyed everything - only Sarah knows if she truly liked the stuff I sent her way). One of the many, many songs I discovered during those conversations was Computer Camp Love by Datarock.
The synth-heavy music and the deadpan, Grease-referencing vocals made this one of the most memorable tracks from those MSN days, and we recently came across this album in Rise (again) for only a few pounds. I bought it, of course, and I'm happy to report that the rest of the album is just as good. Fa Fa Fa is my favourite - it's an elongated dance workout that actually manages to hold a candle to LCD Soundsystem, who of course are everyone's #1 dance band.
Sarah likes LCD Soundsystem, too, as if we needed any further proof that she knows her stuff. Here's another great song she introduced me to - Here Comes a Special Boy by Freezepop, which itself introduced me to an outstanding webcomic called Achewood.
Some might say that buying an album because you really like one of its songs is a little excessive - why not just download that song? Or at least listen to a couple of others before you commit to the whole thing?
Still, this is something I've done often, and while purchasing an album with only one track that's definitely any good can occasionally lead to disappointment, I find more often than not that the other stuff is pretty good too. Heck, half the time, the song I paid for isn't even the best one on there!
Here, then, are five albums that I bought for a song but ended up loving all over:
Playing My Game by Lene Marlin
I'll start with Playing My Game, since it's the album that triggered this blog post. I first heard Sitting Down Here a very long time ago; Radio 2 gave it quite a few plays when it came out in April '99 (I'd have been seven years old, just for reference - my mum would put Radio 2 on in the car on the way home from school).
Allow me to paint a picture for you. You're browsing through the CDs in a charity shop, as you do, when you come across an album by That Band You've Heard Are Good. You're thrilled - you've been meaning to get into this band for ages, and this second-hand album is the perfect opportunity to do so. And hey, even if it's crap, you've only lost a quid or so.
So you buy it, and you take it home, and it's great! Each track is it's own little symphony, and yet the whole thing flows together seamlessly, with barely a note out of place. What a purchase this was! You make a beeline for The Internet, eager to read the opinions of like-minded people who enjoyed this album as much as you did...
...and nobody on The Internet gives a shit, because you've bought that album. You know, that album; the one that's doomed to forever live in the shadow of the band's other achievements; the one that nobody ever talks about because, well, it's a small fish in a big pond. It could be that it came out during the band's formative years - before they really hit their stride - or it could be a more recent release that didn't live up to expectations.
It's hard not to feel disappointed when the best thing anyone has to say about your new favourite album is that it's 'underrated' or 'just as good as their more popular stuff'. But context makes a big difference; as far as you're concerned, the tracks on your charity shop album are that band's Greatest Hits, but the long-time fans on the interweb are privy to the bigger picture. They were there when the band released this lacklustre imitation of their former glories, and they haven't thought up a kind word to say about it since.
Of course, you're now free to explore the band's back catalogue, and you may well discover that The Internet was right: the album you bought was merely the tip of that sexy iceberg. But even if these new discoveries utterly dwarf the album you came in on, you'll probably still have a place in your heart for that record. After all, it was your gateway to this world of sonic delights. Heck, you might even decide that, having heard everything the artist has to offer, you still like that charity shop one the best.
In short, I think that the first album you hear by a band will more often than not prove to be your favourite of theirs. At the very least, you'll think higher of it for having been your cherry-popper where that particular artist was concerned. Here are some examples from my own crooked path...
My first Suede album: Dog Man Star
Bought it for about 50p at a car boot sale, thought it was a work of genius. A lot of people think that their debut is better - after all, that was the one with Bernard Butler - but I couldn't disagree more. This is their best, followed by Coming Up. The self-titled album is third.
My first Clinic album: Winchester Cathedral
Found this in D'Vinyl Records and snapped it up after seeing Clinic support Arcade Fire in Cardiff. I think it's a damn cool album, but apparently it pales in comparison to their earlier work. Notice how the most positive review of this album on Amazon was written by someone who had never listened to Clinic before.
My first Pavement album: Terror Twilight
This one came from Oxfam, I think. Ignore that ugly-butt cover and there are some seriously sweet tunes inside. The other Pavement album I own is Wowee Zowee, but I much prefer this one. The songs are just...better.
My first Cosmic Rough Riders album: The Stars Look Different From Down Here
Bought from Fopp in Cardiff (remember when that existed?), simply because they were doing an instore gig and signing copies of the new CD. This is another case of 'they lost a member, now they suck' - I've got Enjoy the Melodic Sunshine, and that's really good too, but for entirely different reasons.
My first Tindersticks album: The Hungry Saw
This was the first album that I thought of when I decided to do this blog post. I bought it for a fiver, having read on the web that Tindersticks were really good, and after one listen I completely agreed. But then the web turned around and went, 'Hm? Oh no, not that Tindersticks - the old albums are the ones you want.' Now that I've got those older releases, I can confirm that the web was right, but I still think this is a masterpiece.
My first Lambchop album: I Hope You're Sitting Down
Like The Hungry Saw, I bought this one because I wanted to see what the artist was like and this was the cheapest option. But where THS is considered a disappointment compared to earlier albums, this LP is seen as the tadpole that eventually turned into a band capable of creating Nixon. Again, I like the critically-acclaimed album, but I like this just as much - it's more lo-fi, and the songs are a lot more direct than the roundabout, string-laden stuff on Nixon. Just listen to this one:
There are loads of other examples. My girlfriend Sarah and I can't agree on which of Rufus Wainwright's Want albums is better. I heard Want One first, and that's my favourite, whereas she prefers Want Two, which was the first one she heard. Coincidence? Perhaps, perhaps not.
What do you think? Do albums sound better when you've got no previous experience of that artist? If you'd care to weigh in on this, drop us a comment. And have a good weekend!
